This is an activity in which students take the role of either a car seller or a car buyer to learn about transportation energy options. Car sellers are challenged to pitch to buyers about cars with a particular fuel type while car buyers each have a specified personal and socio-economic background that must be considered when buying a car.

This board game, designed for middle school students, introduces the concepts of energy use in our lives and the real impact that personal choices can have on our energy consumption, energy bills, and fuel supply.

This Energy Flow Charts website is a set of energy Sankey diagrams or flow charts for 136 countries constructed from data maintained by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and reflects the energy use patterns for 2007.

This video provides an introduction to benefits and limitations of many sources of energy including fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. It also discusses hydrogen and hybrid cars.

This video segment highlights how the U.S. military is the single largest user of energy in the nation, but it is also trying to reduce its carbon bootprint. Scenes taped at Fort Irwin and Camp Pendleton show the Army and Marines experimenting with wind and solar in order to reduce the number of fuel convoys that are vulnerable to attack.

Sankey (or Spaghetti) diagrams parse out the energy flow by state, based on 2008 data from the Dept. of Energy. These diagrams can help bring a local perspective to energy consumption. The estimates include rejected or lost energy but don't necessarily include losses at the ultimate user end that are due to lack of insulation.

This video from Earth: The Operators' Manual describes how fossil fuels are made, and it compares how long it takes to create coal, oil and natural gas (millions of years), with how fast we're using them (hundreds of years). Narrated by Dr. Richard Alley.

This is a laboratory activity in which students will compare the amount of carbon dioxide in four different sources of gas and determine the carbon dioxide contribution from automobiles. They test ambient air, human exhalation, automobile exhaust, and nearly pure carbon dioxide from a vinegar/baking soda mixture.

This activity illustrates the carbon cycle using an age-appropriate hook, and it includes thorough discussion and hands-on experimentation. Students learn about the geological (ancient) carbon cycle; they investigate the role of dinosaurs in the carbon cycle, and the eventual storage of carbon in the form of chalk. Students discover how the carbon cycle has been occurring for millions of years and is necessary for life on Earth. Finally, they may extend their knowledge to the concept of global warming and how engineers are working to understand the carbon cycle and reduce harmful carbon dioxide emissions.